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Tag Archives: cold

Well, it’s that time of year again. Kids are back in school. Persephone is returning to Hades. The leaves on the trees are transforming into a kaleidoscope of colors. And a chill is beginning to creep over those of us that live in the northern hemisphere. I’m not gonna lie. This six foot, two inch, manly man is a winter wimp! — Don’t laugh. I can be manly. I have power tools! 😎

Anyone who lives in a house knows the ongoing ritual required to maintain it. We make endless checklists, and then make multiple trips to the home improvement store because we forgot the list. Our South Philly home doesn’t have gutters or shingles. We don’t have a lawn or a garden that needs to be winterized. What we do have is that wretched mainstay of cheap post-war architecture and design, Aluminum Windows. I want to know whose brilliant idea it was to put aluminum windows on a house where winter temperatures can dip below freezing? And if that wasn’t bad enough, the designer, in his or her infinite wisdom, decided that marble would make lovely window sills. — Because, apparently, aluminum windows don’t make the house cold enough.

Our first winter here was an eye opener.

When you’re just getting started in a new home, and your relationship is all shiny and new, your mind isn’t on the little details like window sills. So imagine my surprise one morning, while going about my daily bathroom routine, when what felt like a waterfall of cold air descended upon my lap. — Brrrrrr! Talk about wake up calls.

Whose brilliant idea was it to install marble sills on aluminum windows?

We tried our best to be conservative with the thermostat but our heating bills were predictably high that winter. So we made a list. We took a walk through the home improvement store and made a list of all the things we could do to avoid freezing our butts every winter.

Now, every autumn, I get ready to install what we have lovingly come to call White Trash (or ‘Ghetto’) Storm Windows.

When September turns into October, I apply the double sided tape around the perimeter of each window. I learned the hard way that if you wait until winter settles in the tape won’t adhere properly to the cold aluminum, which has a tendency to sweat due to the temperature difference. The only downside is the ribbon, printed with the Frost King logo, that surrounds each window. But that’s a small inconvenience when you remember the cold flow of air descending upon your lap from the bathroom window.

When temperatures fall in a few months, we’ll apply the plastic to the windows. Until then we’ll try to ignore the little orange snowmen marching around our window frames.

Someday we’ll get new windows. It’s on our to-do list. Until then, we’ll be the couple that lives in the South Philly house with shrink wrapped windows. 😉